methodically torture it. ‘If you get so much as a sniff of a suspect I want to know right away – and I want everything in the statements. Except of course the stuff you can’t put in the statements, in which case you inform Stephanopoulos or me as soon as possible.’
‘The father is a US senator,’ said Stephanopoulos. ‘Do I need to stress how important it is that neither he, Agent Reynolds or, more importantly, the American media get even a whiff of anything unusual?’
The paperclip broke between Seawoll’s fingers.
‘The Commissioner phoned this morning,’ he said, picking up another paperclip. ‘He wants to make it clear that should the beady eye of the media fall upon you, he expects you to dig a hole, climb in and bleeding stay there until we tell you otherwise. Got it?’
‘Do what I’m told, tell you everything, don’t tell the Americans anything and don’t end up on TV,’ I said.
‘He’s a cheeky bugger,’ said Seawoll.
‘Yes he is,’ said Stephanopoulos.
Seawoll dropped the mangled paperclip back into a little Perspex box where it served, presumably, as an awful warning to the rest of the stationery.
‘Any questions?’ he asked
‘Have you finished with Zachary Palmer yet?’ I asked.
7
Nine Elms
Given that I was not only getting him out of the custody suite but also offering him a lift home, Zachary Palmer seemed curiously displeased to see me.
‘How come you locked me up?’ he asked as we drove back.
I pointed out that he hadn’t been under arrest and could have just asked to leave whenever he wanted to. He seemed surprised to learn that, which confirmed that either he wasn’t a career criminal or he was too stupid to pass the entrance exam.
‘I wanted to clean the house up,’ he said. ‘You know, so it would nice for when his parents visited.’
It had stopped snowing overnight and the sheer weight of London traffic had cleared the main roads. You still had to be careful in the side streets, not least because gangs of kids had taken to snowballing passing cars.
‘You’ve got a cleaning lady, don’t you?’ I said.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Zach as if remembering suddenly. ‘But I don’t think she comes in today and anyway she’s not my cleaning lady, she was Jim’s. Now he’s not there she probably won’t come. I don’t want them to think I’m a slacker – his parents – I want them to know he had a mate.’
‘How did you meet James Gallagher?’ I asked.
‘Why do you always do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Call him by both his names all the time,’ said Zach slouching down in his seat. ‘He liked being called Jim.’
‘It’s a police thing,’ I said. ‘It avoids confusion and shows some respect. How did you meet him?’
‘Who?’
‘Your friend Jimmy,’ I said.
‘Can we stop off for some breakfast?’
‘You know it’s been left entirely up to me whether we charge you or not?’ I lied.
Zach started absently tapping the window. ‘I was a mate of one of his mate’s mates,’ he said. ‘We just got on. He liked London but he was shy, he needed a guide and I needed to a place to crash.’
This was close enough to the statements he’d given first to Guleed and then to Stephanopoulos for me to think it might even be the truth. Stephanopoulos had asked about drugs, but Zach had sworn blind and on his mother’s life that James Gallagher hadn’t partaken. Didn’t have any objections, mind, just wasn’t interested.
‘Guide to what?’ I asked as I negotiated the tricky corner at Notting Hill Gate. It had begun to snow again, not as heavy as the day before but enough to make the road surface slick and unforgiving.
‘Pubs, clubs,’ said Zach. ‘You know places, art galleries – London. He wanted to go places in London.’
‘Did you show him where to buy the fruit bowl?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know why you’re so interested in that fruit bowl. It’s just a bowl.’
Amazingly, I didn’t tell him it was because I thought it was a magic fruit bowl. It’s the sort of thing that can open one up to ridicule.
‘It’s a police thing,’ I said.
‘I know where he got it,’ he said. ‘But we might have to have breakfast first.’
Portobello Road is a long thin road that undulates from Notting Hill to the Westway and beyond. It’s been the front line in the gentrification war since the big money started arriving in Ladbroke Grove with the pop stars and the film directors in the swinging sixties. There’s been a market there since the time you could walk into fields at the north end and catch fish in Counter’s Creek. The antique market, the bit that sucks in tourists every Saturday, only got started in the 1940s but it’s what everyone thinks of when they hear the name. As the well-heeled bohemians were replaced by the really rich in the 1980s Portobello has been like a thermometer of social change. Starting at the Notting Hill end the neat little Victorian terraces have been snaffled up by people with six-figure salaries and the big high-street chains have been looking to spawn amongst the antique shops and Jamaican cafes. Only the red- brick council estates stand like bastions against the remorseless tide, glowering down on the City folk and the media professionals and lowering the house prices by their very presence.
Portobello Court was a case in point, guarding the crossroads with Elgin Crescent and the transition between antique market and the fruit and veg. Holding the line so that a man could still find double sausage, eggs, beans, toast and chips for a fiver and at the same time keep an eye on the patch allocated to the market stall where, Zach swore, James Gallagher had bought his fruit bowl. He had the fry-up. I had a rather nice mushroom omelette and a cup of tea. Zach picked up a discarded copy of the
I phoned Lesley. ‘How do I check on the owners of a market stall in Portobello?’ I asked.
Zach paused mid-chew to look at me.
‘You call the Inside Inquiry Team,’ she said. ‘Who are actually paid to answer your stupid questions.’ I could hear street sounds behind her.
‘Where are you?’
‘Gower Street,’ she said. ‘I’ve got another consult.’
I said goodbye and fished about in my address book for the Inside Inquiry Team’s number. Zach gave me an urgent little wave.
‘What?’
‘I’ve got a little confession to make,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t entirely honest.’
‘I’m shocked,’ I said.
‘The actual stall,’ he said. ‘The one you want is that one.’ He pointed to a stall further down the street. It was selling pots, pans and assorted dodgy kitchenware and had been when we’d stepped into the cafe half an hour earlier.
‘I’ve got a philosophical question,’ I said. ‘Do you realise that your continually lying to me is an erosion of trust that could have adverse consequences at a later date – for instance in about five minutes?’
‘Not really,’ said Zach around a mouthful of chips. ‘I’ve always been a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. A grasshopper not an ant. What happens in five minutes?’
‘I finish my tea,’ I said.
If you live in London just about the last thing you expect is a white Christmas. The stallholder had been ready for the festive season. There was tinsel draped around the struts of his stall and a small plastic Christmas tree with a ‘Last Minute Xmas Bargains!’ sign attached where the fairy should go. But he had to keep knocking the
